The Problem Of Economics And Violence

“Violence has been a prominent social response to the application of structural adjustment policies throughout Latin America. There are societies in which, things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Violence is a shared disease that seems to arise in all societies where there are profound social differences and exploitation…Many Latin American societies are condemned to bloodletting by the precedents of violence and gross injustice that characterize their culture and their history.”

Violence throughout our time has been evident ever since the beginning of our human species. From verbal to physical, one will not go through his/her lifetime without understanding the violent nature of other people. Richard Wilkinson brought up a point that “More unequal societies tend to be more violent” (Wilkinson 2). Wilkinson shows that there is a prominent correlation between income and homicide. Lower incomes shows higher rates of homicide. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows how violence can flourish due to the inequality seen in the lower classes. Dickens uses violence to portray that a society filled with inequalities can lead to violence.

1) Conflict theory.- stress that the power elite uses the legal system to control worker and to stabilize the social order, all with the goal of keeping itself in power. The poor pose a threat, for if they rebel as a group they can dislodge members of the power elite from their place of privilege. To prevent this, the power elite makes certain that heavy penalties come down on those who’s crimes could upset the social order.

Violence, one of the biggest problem in the world right now, especially in America, where the gun control law are barely enforced, every citizen is at constant risk, considering the amount of people in this country that own guns. Crime and violence are rapidly becoming the prime epidemic in the U.S today, but what can we do to ensure our future generation’s safety?

All struggles for power is political, thus there is an ineluctable political dimension to debates over the definition of crime (Dantzker and Hunter, 2006:7). Serious social harms are ignored by the traditional definition of crime because it benefits the political and economic agenda of a certain group of people. The sociologist Edwin Sutherland argued that the justice system is systematically biased towards people of higher classes, their class power allows them to influence the implementation and administration of the law (Maguire & Radosh 1996 pg 87). For example, large cooperation’s can influence politics, through lobbying, they use their economic power to buy into the government enabling them to influence government policies. Therefore the “law cannot be fully trusted”, (Yar, 2012: 52, because it disproportionately targets blue collar crime over that of white collar. This is because people who make the law have a vested interest. So, a positive attribute of social harms is that it challenges structures of power, such as government, and works outside the framework of “law”, the study of harm, is likely to “implicate states” (Dorling

Aggression – ‘the export of violence’ – played a central role in the rise of the West. Military and naval superiority rather than better resources, greater moral rectitude, irresistible commercial acumen underpinned western expansion. This same aggression was on display during the American Civil War. Both the North and South were fighting for their version of democracy in the Civil War. Lincoln optimized this in his closing line of the Gettysburg Address, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Several battles for both sides added to the attrition efforts and almost achieved a decisive victory but fell short. America felt the effects of battles on the home front and the political twisting that came with a war threatening our own land and well-being at home in a manner that wouldn’t be felt again for another 136 years. Even in the labels placed by the opposing sides, The "War of Northern Aggression" and “The "War of Southern Aggression", conversely, the ideal of aggression throughout the war was evident. The American Civil War revolved around the idea of saving the democracy through a decisive battle and political victory that would attrite the other side into submission; these ideals are rooted in an aggressive military tradition.

The United States is made up of social classes which are divided based on the socio economic status of the citizen or the family. The three different levels to the class sys-tem are the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. Unfortunately there is also poverty that exists which is also a factor to be considered when analyzing crime. There are many theorist who believe that a person’s socio economic status has a large impact on the likelihood of whether or not a person will commit crime during their life-time. According to Bank, Flavin, and Leighton, “Marx and Engels believed that crime was about defects of society and the product of the demoralization and alienation caused by the conditions of capitalism.” In short this statement is saying that there are underlying reasons why people commit crimes, it is not just about whether poverty is present, how wealthy a person, what social class they are in, or what a person’s socio economic status is. However, socio economic status, poverty level, and social class all do have an effect on the rate of which crime is committed by citizens.

We are all unequal, therefore, build an unequal society, but not together, but superiors are responsible for building it; those belonging to the elite. In the approach taken by the author of Inequality & violence in the U.S. the capitalist system, makes us see the dark side of society, distinguishing the types of violence in the author 's opinion, they are worrying. Violence is closely linked to economic inequalities, ethnic or gender caused in most cases by a capitalist and militarist system exacerbated.

Fixing America is going to take a lot more than a hammer and nails. To fix America, we will have to get our money/dept and the violence happening in and out of our country under control.

This theory is very broadly focused and examines a society as a whole rather than an individual’s motivation for crime. In lecture, Miriam Bohmert, Ph.D. explained that in conflict theory, the law “Emphasizes & preserves private property, which belongs to the ruling class…Appears to promote legal equality…But really just serves to pacify the powerless” (Bohmert, Ph.D.). In the Occupy Wall Street movement, the marginalization of the poor was made clear by the severity of economic distress in 2011. The “unemployment rate was above 9%,” (Jihong) which placed the United States into a vulnerable state, allowing citizens to question the intentions of those in power and attempt to force those in power to provide solutions to the problem or become subject to violence. Although one can discredit conflict theory’s influence on this movement, citing the fact that those in power remained in power, one can argue that the shift of power occurs naturally through the United States political process, and the movement simply affected future politicians stances on issues that are meant to reflect the desires of the citizens that they represent. Conflict theory explains the vulnerable state that the United States was in that led to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which influenced citizens to reconsider their stance on issues that would

Violence is a necessary proponent to history. Without violence we as human species would struggle to evolve and the United States would currently not exist. In the decade preceding the civil war, sectional and political tensions regarding the expansion of slavery into new territories grew larger. With the emergence of the Republican Party in the mid ninetieth century, the United States experienced a sectional pull between those who were pro-slavery Democrats, and those who were anti-slavery expansion Republicans. Emotions regarding the expansion of slavery yielded barbaric acts across the country including the canning of Charles Sumner, the hanging of John Brown, and the violence that construed in the Kansas territory. Each of the victims were white, were antislavery, and fell victim to the violence of a pro-slavery Democrat outraged by their actions. These acts of violence swayed many Democrats voters to the Republican Party setting the platform for success for Republican Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln who won the election of 1860 with 180 electoral votes to Southern Democratic candidate Breckenridge 's 72.

In the 1960s, Johan Galtung posited the construct of violence as a phenomenon generated by the existence of social barriers that deny needs satisfaction in certain sectors of society. Galtung's conceptual framework illustrates the relationship between the structure of society and the inequalities experienced by its citizens. Gilman's seminal definition of structural violence reads, “physical and psychological harm that results from exploitive and unjust social, political, and economic systems” (1983, p. 8).

The rich engage in white-collar crimes, whereas the poor engage in more armed robbery type of crimes. Both are equally harmful to society. White-collar crimes are not as easily identified as street crimes. Also, white-collar crime perpetrators can use their power and influence to avoid prosecution. Street crimes, which are often committed by lower class, do not have power to influence and avoid prosecution. In addition, the privileged can often afford expensive lawyers and are sometimes on a first-name basis with the individuals in charge of making and enforcing laws, which gives them an advantage. Members of the lower class generally do not have these advantages. Conflict theory also states that the individuals we generally label as irregular are also quite powerless. For example, if we think about the powerless that have no means of financial stability often engage in criminal activity to survive. This activity according to law, which is made by the upper privileged, is considered wrong and requires punishment. Such activity can include prostitution. Prostitution is illegal and the criminal is sentenced to jail, which minimizes their opportunity to progress in society. They now have several sentenced accounts, which makes it harder fro them to fin a good job in the future,

Sociopolitical structural violence focuses on the states ability to exercise legal authority. Many migrant workers face challenges of being illegal immigrants or lacking the education or proper paper work to demand more pay or assistance. The Rawlsian Debate video discussed inequality, standards of living, and a better education for the poor. The video looked at determining whether the distribution of wealth is “fair” and if people are due I certain level of education or wealth. The video also covered five kinds of distributive types: equity, equality, power, need and responsibility. One of the posed questions is how to deal with the fact that wealth buys resources and access to the legal system

Structural violence can come from individual, social and political bearings. Although structural violence is not derived from anyone